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Jason English
Fun Font Facts
by Jason English - February 21, 2007 - 10:10 AM

• Times New Roman was commissioned by and named for The Times of London in the early 1930s. In 2004, the U.S. State Department parted ways with Courier New, announcing that all official documents would use Times New Roman, size 14. However, in the 2007 edition of Microsoft Office – after a long and storied run – Times New Roman was replaced by Calibri as the default font.

• Helvetica was designed by Swiss graphic artist Max Miedinger in the late 1950s. The name is derived from Helvetia, the Latin name for Switzerland.

• Commissioned by IBM, Courier New was designed for typewriters by Bud Kettler in 1955. The font was nearly released with the name “Messenger.” “After giving it some thought,” Kettler said, “A letter can be just an ordinary messenger, or it can be the courier, which radiates dignity, prestige, and stability.”

• Futura can be found in Eyes Wide Shut posters, on the plaque left on the moon by Apollo 11 astronauts, and in jersey numbers of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

• Chalkboard is called Chalkboard because it looks as though your type was written on a chalkboard. This is just a guess.

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Comments (6)

  1. I’m shocked that the new default font for Microsoft Office is Calibri. This is a sans serif font, which is totally inappropriate for large hunks of copy. Sure,it’s fine for short bites or for heads, but any longer document is really difficult to read in sans serif.(By the way, I favour Georgia over Times Roman for printed documents — but then, I’m an old baby boomer, so perhaps that says something; “feeble eyes” maybe…)

    posted by Margaret Condy on 2-21-2007 at 10:45 am

  2. Another fun fact about Helvetica - they made a movie about it! The world premiere is going to be at the SXSW film festival next month. www.helveticafilm.com

    posted by Molly on 2-21-2007 at 10:45 am

  3. Sorry Molly. Doesn’t sound like my TYPE of movie. LOL!!!

    (oh, like none of you were thinking that!)

    posted by Sheldon Siegel on 2-21-2007 at 12:11 pm

  4. Personally, I’m a big Arial fan. Inherited it from my father.

    posted by Rosalie on 2-21-2007 at 4:54 pm

  5. You left out my favorite: Trebuchet. Also Verdana. For a serif font I like Garamond. I don’t like Comic.

    posted by Bill Wagner on 2-21-2007 at 10:18 pm

  6. All typography buffs revere Garamond, named after a French typesetter. Wikipedia it! IT’s beautiful!

    I like to use Georgia online.

    posted by Sabrina on 2-26-2007 at 9:46 am

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